For a full account of the pickled fishes of the ancients, we refer to the Fragment of Xenocrates, and the third book of Athenæus. We shall give the general character of them as delivered by the latter, upon the authority of the Siphnian Diphilus. He says that the pickles prepared from sea, lake, and river fishes afford little nourishment, contain few juices, are of a heating nature, are good for the belly, and whet the appetite. The old, he adds, are better and more acrid. Of all the pickled fishes, the most celebrated was the one brought from the Pontus, called _saperda_. According to Athenæus, it was prepared from the umber (_sciæna umbra_ L.) See also Galen (de Alim. Facult. iii, 41.) Hippocrates says they are desiccant, attenuant, and for the most part laxative. (De Diæta.) Diphilus says they are whetters and laxatives; and hence Galen directs them to be taken at the commencement of a meal, and particularly recommends them for old men. Rhases speaks more unfavorably of them. It may be proper in this place to give some account of the _isitia_, or _isicia_ of the ancients. With regard to the etymology of the word, then, it is derived by Macrobius ab insectione. They consisted of minced meat, either flesh or fish, boiled or roasted, and seasoned with pepper, cumin, lovage, and the like. Apicius gives receipts for preparing several dishes of this kind, from the loligo, sepia, locusta, and swine’s liver. The last mentioned was inclosed in the omentum, or cowl, and must therefore have resembled the dish now called a haggis. Lampridius says that the emperor Heliogabalus was the first who prepared isicia from fishes, oysters, lobsters, squillæ, and the like. If this statement be true, the works of Apicius which we possess cannot be genuine. _Isicia_ from shell-fish, the sepia, loligo, &c. are very favorably spoken of by Alexander Trallian (xi.) On the _Isicia_, see further Ludovicus Nonnius (de Piscium Esu, xxxviii), and Lambecius (ad Apic.) SECT. XCV.—ON THE PROPERTIES OF WINE.